Kurdish fighters watch a convoy of American soldiers with the 173rd Airborne out of Vicenza, Italy, leave from an airstrip near Harir, Kurdish-held northern Iraq, Saturday March 29, 2003. Some 1,000 U.S. soldiers arrived midweek and haved fanned out throughout the region. (AP Photo / Peter Dejong) less

Kurdish fighters watch a convoy of American soldiers with the 173rd Airborne out of Vicenza, Italy, leave from an airstrip near Harir, Kurdish-held northern Iraq, Saturday March 29, 2003. Some 1,000 U.S. ... more

Photo: PETER DEJONG

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Iraqi Kurdish militia fighters raise a KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party flag in the Qushtapa area, 50 kms (30 miles) south of the Kurdish-controlled town of Irbil, during a move towards the oil center of Kirkuk, northern Iraq, Saturday March, 29, 2003. Striking at Islamic militant camps, U.S. forces and Kurdish fighters were shaping their new northern front against Saddam Hussein's army Saturday, which apparently pulled back along the main road to Kirkuk. (AP Photo / Hasan Sarbakhshian) less

Iraqi Kurdish militia fighters raise a KDP Kurdistan Democratic Party flag in the Qushtapa area, 50 kms (30 miles) south of the Kurdish-controlled town of Irbil, during a move towards the oil center of Kirkuk, ... more

Boom! The American bomb hit the ridge separating Kurdish-controlled territory in the north from the rest of Iraq. From the wasteland outside his rundown mud brick hut in the Banslawa refugee camp, Abbas studied the horizon carefully.

The bomb landed somewhere around Altun Kopri, he concluded, about halfway between Kirkuk, Abbas' hometown on the Baghdad-controlled side of the ridge, and Banslawa, home to about 17,000 refugees who have fled here over the last decade from Iraq and Iran. It came from one of two U.S. jets circling so high above that Abbas could only catch the occasional glint of their wings in the sun.

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"My planes," Abbas said, lovingly, pointing to the sky. "Inshallah" -- God willing -- "America will soon liberate Iraq so that we all can go home."

U.S. planes and missiles have been pounding Iraqi government positions in the north since last week, hitting army bases and artillery depots in and around the strategic oil-rich cities of Kirkuk and Mosul, which are still under Baghdad's control. On Saturday, Iraqi troops continued pulling back from some of their front-line positions near Kirkuk, allowing Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas to advance as far as 15 miles into Baghdad-controlled territory.

BATTLE TO THE DEATH

But before Abbas can go home, U.S. troops -- including the several hundred paratroopers from the Army's 173rd Airborne, along with the lightly armed Kurdish militia -- will have to confront Iraqi forces who, according to local refugees, are gearing up for a battle to the death.

In Kirkuk and in Mosul, the Iraqi army has dug fresh bunkers and trenches, said Khadir Mella, a driver who traveled frequently to both cities before the war. Other eyewitnesses said Iraqi soldiers have dug trenches inside and around the cities and filled them with oil, which they intend to set on fire, aiming to make it harder for U.S. ground troops and low-flying helicopters to fight.

There are an estimated 100,000 Iraqi troops around Mosul and Kirkuk, including several thousand soldiers of the Republican Guard's 7th Adnan Mechanized Division and al Abed Mechanized Division, say refugees and smugglers arriving from the two cities.

The Iraqi forces also include the Fedayeen Saddam, the militia of irregulars that has been harassing U.S. and British forces and supply lines in the south, and the army's Jerusalem Brigade, a reserve unit with the stated purpose of liberating Jerusalem from the Israelis.

In Kirkuk, the Fedayeen and the Jerusalem Brigade have set up small camps of five to seven people on the traditionally flat rooftops of private houses, using their reluctant hosts as human shields, according to refugees. One Fedayeen group has encamped on his own parents' house, said Abbas.

"The Fedayeen is holding my parents hostage," he said.

PRESS-GANGING TROOPS

To bolster its ranks, the Jerusalem Brigade is press-ganging young men into the army, said another refugee, Farhan Majid, 21. Majid said the Jerusalem Brigade -- whose members he described as "criminals, thieves and those who have no job" -- arrested him last November and forced him to serve as one of its fighters until he managed to escape two weeks ago.

"Every family must give at least one of its men to the army, and (ruling) Baath Party officials check every house regularly for teenage sons," Majid said. "If they refuse to serve, they have to pay" the equivalent of $40 -- a significant sum in Iraq, where many families have sold their possessions to buy food.

Rounding out the Iraqi forces in the north, local Iraqis say, are several hundred fighters of the Mujahedeen Khalq, or National Council of Resistance, a particularly ferocious militia consisting of Iranians funded by the Hussein regime to fight some of Iraq's most vicious battles in the 1980-89 Iran-Iraq war.

The remainder of Hussein's forces in the north are reportedly made up of civilians to whom the government has handed out automatic rifles after a month or so of training.

To ensure that these forces do not immediately surrender or melt away, Hussein has appointed several secret police officers to each military unit with orders to kill anyone who refuses to fight, say members of the Iraqi opposition.

"If they refuse to fight, they are dead," said a former Iraqi army colonel who participated in the failed popular uprising against Hussein's regime after the 1991 Gulf War. "Nobody knows who these secret policemen are, who exactly is watching. It's like Stalin in Stalingrad," he said, referring to the decisive World War II battle of 1943, when Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered special military police units to shoot anyone who looked to retreat or surrender to the technically superior Nazi army.

MORE U.S. SOLDIERS

The U.S. military is sending more troops and heavier firepower to complement the approximately 1,200 soldiers, paratroopers and special forces that the United States already has in the north.

"The fight for Kirkuk and Mosul will be a difficult one," said Abbas, watching another pillar of smoke rise on the horizon as jets from high in the sky continued to bomb Iraqi positions.

"But I pray that America doesn't stop in the face of hardship," he said. "If America leaves Saddam and doesn't finish him off, he will live forever and we will never be able to go home."